Entries Tagged 'HR Exclusives' ↓
January 28th, 2008 — Brian Keene, From The Feeds, HR Exclusives, Novels, Reviews
Spring has come with a
vengeance to LeHorn's Hollow, Pennsylvania. While
walking his dog, mystery author Adam Senft stumbles upon an enigma of his own,
when he encounters his pretty neighbor engaged in a lewd act with something
that is not human. Soon enough, he
discovers that evil surrounds the entire town. The woods themselves are behaving strangely,
the sound of pipes is on the air, women are going missing, and some supernatural force is drawing upon the not-so repressed desires
of the townspeople, threatening to transform LeHorn's Hollow into something of
a hell on earth. Only Adam and his
neighbors seem to have an inkling of what is going on around them, and it falls
upon their shoulders to try and make things right.
The setup for Brian
Keene's latest novel is certainly reminiscent of other small town horror
stories (it certainly draws upon such works as Stephen King's Salem's Lot,
Robert McCammon's Bethany's Sin, and Bentley Little's Dominion). However, there is more to Dark Hollow than
its setup. The execution is where this
book truly shines, particularly in several strongly evoked characters (human
and otherwise), which seems to be the trademark of Keene's fiction.
The protagonist for this
novel (and the first person narrator) is Adam Senft, a mystery novelist who
managed to succeed in his chosen career against all expectations. While not in the league of say James Patterson, Senft has nevertheless
succeeded in such a fashion that he can live comfortably as a full time
novelist. His family life is not quite
so successful, alas. Though happily
married, he and his wife are unable to carry a baby to term. A series of miscarriages has left them
childless and, worse, ruined their hope for having children. There is a melancholy to Senft's narration,
and a certain fixation on the sex lives of his neighbors (which is only
natural; it's a product, this reader perceives, of envy).
There is a lot of sex in
this book, from literal acts to metaphoric ones to a general mood of sexual
frustration. Yet, while there are lewd
moments to the work, the subject is for the most part handled with maturity, craft, and wit.
Thematically speaking,
this work hearkens quite closely to Keene's novel Ghoul. The supernatural antagonists have similar
motivations and are, in fact, presented as nearly identical: both are the last members of an ancient
species, minions to Greater Powers that exist outside our time and space
(Dunsany and Lovecraft via Keene's
Labyrinth mythos). These two works are reflective
of each other (bookends of a sort), though where Ghoul dealt mostly with coming of
age, this one is more about accepting the responsibilities that come with
living within a community.
One place I would like to
have seen a bit more information than is offered is in the town itself. While ably evoked in early chapters, this
reader is a fan of the microcosmic creations of King, Braunbeck, Grant and
other horror writers. With a first
person narrative, we are confined to only the one perspective, and therefore
are shown only a slice of the town. While further novels (including the upcoming Ghost Walk, a preview
of which is found in Dark Hollow) will undoubtedly further detail the town and its
hinterlands, this reader has seen enough to know he wants more, more, more (blame me for being American; alas, even instant gratification takes too long). Beyond both this "lacking" and the egregious flaw of far too many characters whose names begin with the letter "C" (Cory, Cliff, Carl,
et al.), this novel delivers exactly what it promises, a personal horror story.
There are plenty of
references to Keene's Labyrinth mythos (as well as his other works),
but these details are kept in the background. While picking up on these is not necessary to understanding Dark Hollow,
they offer choice nuggets to Keene's longtime fans. These are details in the corner of the canvas, so to speak, pleasant
enough to behold by the general observer but a real treat for this author's constant readers.
Dark Hollow by Briane
Keene
336 pages
Leisure Books
Published February 2008
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Publisher's Website
January 28th, 2008 — From The Feeds, HR Exclusives, Novels, Reviews
No unearthly
monsters. No ghosts. No curses. Not even a single drop of blood decorates these pages. The tropes of traditional, Western horror are
completely ignored in this Japanese novel, and yet it evokes a sense of
dread which is nothing less than genuinely
disturbing. How does such a slender,
translated novel accomplish this? Simply
by inviting us into an odd family and keeping us there until it is
far too late for even the hope of escape...
The Shito family is four
generations strong, and all eight surviving members live together in a
grandiose estate in the suburbs of Tokyo. Their
garden is their pride and joy. Yet,
what strange plants are they growing? The family itself is quite friendly. Perhaps overly so. What secrets
are they hiding? These are only the
first of the concerns faced by Noriko, who is only recently wed into the family
and already beginning to suspect that there is more to this clan than first
appears. The answers she finds will
forever change her. This family is hiding
secrets, of course. Yet they are of a
nature that not even Noriko could have imagined...
The ultimate target of
author Asa Nonami's work is marriage, from the customs associated with it, to the associated metaphorical act of transformation (of
leaving a birth family and joining with another, in this case as performed only
by Noriko; her husband remains bound), to the claustrophobic possibilities
that are found in Familial Closeness, and further.
For this journey, Noriko
is both protagonist and our perspective character. The work is written in third person, but
confined completely to her point of view. This serves well to create an unreliable narrative and yet does so
without falling back upon the classic model of such as found in either Poe 's first-person-on-the-verge-of-a-breakdown or Hawthorne's "third personality" (ala <i>The House of Seven Gables</i>). Through this work, the reader follows Noriko as she begins the novel
with an open heart and mind, witness a growing number of oddities, and finds a
crippling sense of the world collapsing upon her. Upon ourselves. Mounting suspicions become a full blown
paranoia, and soon enough, the reader is left in a brilliantly evoked miasma of
doubt. Is the Shito family deserving of
such suspicions? Are Noriko's suspicions
the product of a rational mind or the product of a breakdown?
This doubt, fear and
paranoia, the changing mood of the piece is accomplished with beautiful ease
and subtlety. Unease develops naturally,
delivered with simple prose observations and literary sleight of hand.
The act of evaluating
translated literature is by its very nature incredibly difficult. One must rely upon another's interpretation
of the original text, and oftentimes the nuances are lost. In the case of Now You're One of Us,
however, the text is rich. The images
are clean and clear. The voice is
relentless, and yet the subject matter at times suggests the bite of satire,
though these stabs are aimed at sacred cows from a culture that is not quite
familiar. And yet, the thing is simply
fascinating to behold.
This publisher, Vertical,
has brought quite a bit of wonderful Japanese literature to America. From Koji
Suzuki's works (including the fantastic Ring trilogy) to Hideaki Sena's Parasite
Eve and more. Now You're One of
Us marks yet another excellent entry in Vertical's catalog.
For this reader, a good
horror novel leaves something akin to an emotional scar. It sticks in the memory, transforms the reader's perspective of the world (often in subversive fashion). With her one-to-one blend of mystery and family
drama gone insane, Asa Nonami has crafted a fascinating horror story that
lingers in the imagination long after the final page has been turned.
Now You're One of Us by
Asa Nonami
239 Pages
Vertical, Inc.
Published November 2007
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January 18th, 2008 — From The Feeds, HR Exclusives, Novels, Reviews
Jason S. Hornsby turns to
clock back to the end of December, 1999 for Every Sigh, The End. But have no fear, it does not linger
there. The novel is essentially the
strange story of Ross Orringer, a slacker and college grad who could not care
less about his place in the world. He makes
some money doing dubs of extreme and difficult to find horror movies, while
filling the rest of his time attending parties he's too old for, pining for his
unfaithful girlfriend while carrying on an affair with her best friend, and
otherwise wasting his time with his best friend Preston. The biggest event in the near future is, of
course, New Year's Eve and the party to go with it. However, this year strange things are happening.
It begins with the
plethora of people on the streets carrying recording equipment, cameras and
mikes, who seem to have an uncanny interest in Ross. Then, there is his mother, on the verge of a breakdown, who
watches the family videos, as though trying to puzzle a secret from them. And then, there are the zombies...
There is no surprise that Every
Sigh, the End is an apocalyptic story. Not even that it is amongst those works that recount the
"zombpocalype" or end of the world as perpetrated by zombies. First off, the book is produced by Permuted
Press, one of the leading small press publishers of zombie novels and
apocalyptic fiction. Secondly, the
novel's subtitle is: (a novel about
zombies). However, those expecting
to find a simple tale of survivors and the living dead -- one more rip off
of the model first worked into film by
George A. Romero and then proliferated through countless countries' cinema and
fiction -- are going to be completely gobstruck, knocked on their collective
asses. This is something, well, different.
This novel is surprisingly
rich, building on a more literary base than most horror fiction. In fact, this novel is particularly
intriguing in that it does not wish to be a mere genre book. It aspires to something else, and while it
is not completely successful, the ambition is delightful to behold. This novel owes more to Bret Easton Ellis
(and, therefore, Henry Miller), Hunter S. Thompson, and John Brunner than it
does to works by genre staples. In
fact, this book acts as something of an anathema to such works.
This is a novel that
begins as something of a bizarre and very effective conspiracy story. A "What the hell is going on" kind
of tale that burrows under the skin and festers. The zombies are present from the get go, if only in the form of
metaphor, but soon they quite literally shamble onto the scene. At this point, it becomes a zombie
story. And yet... Every Sigh, the End is not content to remain
fixed in time. It rockets around,
juxtaposing fragments of past and future, demolishing the time space barrier in
an oddly frustrating way, always turning things around by asking questions that
have no easy answers. By the time a
solution comes about, it seems almost ludicrous, and yet it is acceptable
because this novel does not bother to build. Like its undead hordes, this is a story that likes to dismantle.
The novel is not so much
interested in simple plotting as it is in its literary pretentions, and for
this the book is to be lauded. Here we
have the setup of a pretty good conspiracy story which transforms, with
surprising finesse into an end of the world piece. Yet, the novel completely undermines expectations by focusing not
on the tropes of the zombie genre (though there is enough gut munching to
satisfy even the most stalwart gore hound) but on creating the sorts of
psychological landscapes that one might find in works like John Updike's Rabbit,
Run. And yet, the psychological landscape
is not enough. The book also attacks
America's culture with the same rabid intensity of Don DeLillio's White
Noise. This book seems to take a
page from Michael Chabon, incorporating the stuff of genre -- in this case a
bit of the horror story, the zombie apocalypse, and even a brush with science
fictional conspiracy -- into literary work.
All that said, there are a
few quirks that did not quite agree with this reader. A few cases of odd repetition that grated on my nerves. By this, I do not mean the repetition of the
phrase, "a terribly unoriginal response" following almost anyone's
sighing, or the bolding of every single use of the word "end". These seem to be done for a purpose. However, what's with the number of times zombies
chew on vaginas? The image loses any
sense of strength (not that it really has too much to begin with) by the number
of times it's used. The image occurs as
much as spears piercing breasts in Robert Fagles' 1990 translation of Homer's Illiad. In the end, it seems like a somewhat
silly drinking game...
While I could take a
moment to note that several philosophizing passages about horror movies
(zombies in particular) and other topics are rather childish and eye roll
inducing, this seems to be their point. I am not so old that I cannot recall having similar conversations as an
undergraduate, and I'm sure I thought them nothing less than Pure Genius at the
time, though they are undoubtedly cringe worthy now. Of course, by the novel's end, the transitions between random philosophizing
and actual world knowledge are the ultimate demonstration of the character's
growth.
This reader cannot
recommend Every Sigh, the End (a novel about zombies) enough. Not only is it a brain bender of a read, but
it’s a thoughtful addition to not only the subgenre of zombie fiction, nor to the
genre of horror, but to fiction as a whole.
Every Sigh, the End by Jason S. Hornsby
388 pages
Permuted Press
Published November 2007
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